


the grinding of stones

by lionsenpai



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, Gen, dumping ground for a bunch of little fics from tumblr requests, not all of them involve kissing, pretty much anyone who isnt annie or mikasa is only mentioned in passing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 00:30:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionsenpai/pseuds/lionsenpai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of nonconsecutive, (mostly) unrelated drabbles about babes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the difference between death and sleep is the waking

The forest is full of dead things.

They watch her from the branches, from the thick, gnarled roots beneath her feet. She sees them everywhere she looks, the eyes pits oozing pus and flies, small maggots worming through the discolored, loose skin. It’s started to fall from the bone and muscle, shredding away at touch of crows, peeling back to reveal the blackening tissue beneath.

The crows watch her too, perched upon corpses strung among the trees by thick hempen ropes. Their eyes follow her through the darkness, gleaming like black glass. On the ground they stand vigil on the bodies of the fallen, the rope rotted with time but still draped around the necks. They turn to watch her as she treads past them, their talons poking holes in the flesh of their cadaverous roosts, only occasionally sending up a cry that is echoed among the branches when she strays too close.

She tries not to look at them, tries not to see the skin sloughing from bones, the hair rotted and dirty and twisted with bugs. She tries not to notice the maggots burrowing into their flesh, the flies buzzing faintly. A fox tears at a child’s cheek, and when she passes, it raises its head and watches her go, befouled flesh hanging from its jaws, but she averts her eyes, and she hears it begin to shake the skin from the child’s face once more.

She passes the bodies of men and women, infants and babes, the old and sick, and soon, soldiers.

The ground here is soggy, squishing beneath her feet. Her bare feet come away red, and she finds the defenders with tattered jackets emblazoned with roses, unicorns,  _wings_. How fitting that their final company would be a murder of crows.

She comes upon a body, lying face down in a puddle of water, its flesh bloated and bursting, a scrap of red cloth hung around its neck in place of a noose, and she hurries by as the crows feasting on its flesh beat their wings and scream. She leaves the corpse and prays it will be the last that she knows.

It isn’t. She finds a girl with pig tails, her face bashed in, skeletal features smiling at her with broken teeth. She finds a boy with clutching a rifle, his fingers bruised and swollen, his hair peeling from his scalp with strips of skin, the unicorn on his back covered with blood. She finds a girl who ate too much, a boy who dreamed too big, and someone who once called her good.

They line her path, looking at her with their sunken eyes, their gaping holes, and when she looks to the end of her path, she sees a boy lying amongst the dead, his chest rising and falling with his breaths. He dark hair is clumped with drying blood, his forearms and shins cut off at the joints. She stands over him, and remembers: he was the boy who was going to save the world, he was the boy who was going to save her.

She doesn’t lean down to stop the flow of blood from his extremities, and it flows between her toes. She wants to speak, but knows words won’t change anything.

“You failed,” she says, a confirmation for her own ears.

He could never save anyone, not in this world.

Beyond him, the path is dark, and as she starts to step over his dying body, she sees a shadow slide from the gloom. It moves like silk, though its clothes are shambles and it walks on legs like bones. Its face is grey, stripped of skin from neck to crown. Its jaw hangs loose, and its eyes are pits of black, but she knows its look.

Her father stops before her, worms and sediment falling from his joints.

“ _Finish it_.”

It comes on the wind, and the murder of crows begin to caw, murmuring between one another as they watch her.

She obeys, falling to her knees over the boy who wanted to change the world. She bends and sinks her teeth into his throat, and his breath stutters for only a moment before she pulls the flesh from his neck and the murder shrieks, taking flight. The forest comes alive with the sound of hundreds of crows screaming, beating their wings.

She looks up for her father, but he’s disappeared, the bloated body with the red tied around it neck standing over her instead. It’s torn apart, insides spilling out as it rocks back, a blade in its hand, and then falls down upon her, the blade biting through her flesh.

*

*

*

She wakes briefly, her vision a sea of blue and purple, and she hears voices, sees a light. They move beyond her crystal, poking at it, prodding at it, but never making progress. She is safe here, she remembers, safe from everyone. She doesn’t need to dream such things.

She lets awareness slip from her fingers and hopes the next dream is better. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Canon-set mikanni, prompt is “defiance in her eyes” feel free to set post canon, mid canon or pick your divergence point."

Annie doesn’t know what to make of it. 

The first time she and Mikasa fight, the girl leaves covered in bruises, a ring around her neck where she wouldn’t yield even at the insistence of Annie’s arm at her throat. The instructor calls her off, but Mikasa jumps to her feet, swaying slightly, as soon as Annie rolls off of her back. She throws a look at Annie that promises another round, and Annie cracks her neck and slips back into the crowd. 

The second time Mikasa calls her out on the field, she throws Annie the second she tries to slip her arm in under her chin, more brute strength than technique. Annie takes her down when she kicks her feet out from under her instead and locks her into an arm bar that nearly pops her shoulder out of place because she struggles so much. This time Reiner calls her off, and she relents only after she bears down on Mikasa’s back and tells her, “Stop picking fights with me.”

Mikasa tenses up like she’s getting ready to lash out even though her face is in the dirt, but then Eren tells Annie to get off her, and she releases her and lets him help Mikasa to her feet. 

Later, Annie sees Mikasa in the showers, her shins a dark purple, her shoulder swollen. She hopes she learns quickly.

To be safe, Annie skips training for the next two days, allowing Mina to tag along with her when she seeks refuge in the forest used for 3D Gear training. They talk a little, but mostly Mina lets her keep to her silence, which is even better. 

But Mikasa is waiting for her the next time she goes to training. She picks her out of the crowd, dogs her down, and thrusts a wooden dagger at her. Annie thinks the dagger is nothing but a farce at this point, but she takes it anyway and lunges. She wants to beat Mikasa badly this time. She isn’t interested in being her rival, or her obsession, or whatever this is turning into. 

She sweeps at Mikasa’s feet, but the damned girl just jumps back and comes in to try to get her hands on Annie and grapple her to the ground. So Annie kicks high, thinking that a concussion will send Mikasa on her way and will keep her from trying again. Instead, Mikasa throws her arm up and nearly catches Annie’s foot when it rebounds off her forearm and follows it up with a charge to topple Annie before she can right herself.

They go to the ground and suddenly the tussle is more about elbows and knees and quick hooks and jabs, and all the time Annie realizes that this time  _she’s_ the one on the ground, struggling under Mikasa’s weight. She only barely hears the crowd around them over the blood in her ears. 

In the end, Annie fight Mikasa into another arm bar, grabbing for her hands when Mikasa goes to choke her and throwing her legs up over Mikasa’s shoulders. She pushes her knees together and hears a pop. When the instructor separates them this time, Mikasa’s swollen shoulder is pulled from its socket, her arm limp at her side. She’s taken off with Armin and Eren to the sick bay, but not before turning her eyes on Annie one more time. 

Annie is breathing hard, aching and bruised herself, and she feels the intensity in the stare. She thinks, trying to pull her hair back into a bun, that Mikasa will be trouble.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Mikaani first intense sex after fighting for all that time (say, after your last piece) / 'truth and lies'."

Mikasa doesn’t know what to make of it. 

She watches Annie cool her features, watches her throw up her indifference like a wall. Her face is flushed and dirty with sweat and dust. She’s bleeding where Mikasa’s nails bit into her neck. 

"I win," Mikasa says, lording over Annie, her breath coming quick and heavy. 

"I don’t care," Annie says. "Get off me."

Mikasa thinks, briefly, that Annie is a terrible liar, and then bends down to kiss her. 

Her lips are clumsy, but Annie’s are clumsier, and between the two of them there’s too much pressure and just a little too much teeth. Mikasa knocks hers against Annie’s by accident, but Annie grips Mikasa by the collar so she keeps kissing her anyway. 

She wonders if she’ll care about Annie after this. She likes her for her strength and her stubbornness (and maybe even the way she taunts her sometimes after a match), but now that she’s beaten her, Mikasa isn’t so sure she’ll find the same allure to her anymore.

Annie pushes up against Mikasa, and the press of her hips between Mikasa’s thighs makes her jump a little, stuttering as Annie slips her tongue into her mouth, surprisingly persistent. 

And just like that Mikasa’s thoughts dissolve into the kiss, into accidental touches and uncertain looks. 

Through it all, she manages to wonder: if she asks Annie what this means after it’s all said and done, would she get the truth?

Probably not, she decides as Annie grazes her fingers over the back of her neck, not really sure what to do with her hands. 

Annie is bad at lying, but even worse at telling the truth.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Mikaani prompt would be…. They’re showering (trainee days) and when everyone else leaves its just the two and mikasa is like breathing down annie’s neck and they fuck :)"

Summer sees the days lengthen. 

Training carries on later than during the winter because of the extra daylight, but it isn’t so unbearably cold that anyone minds too much. Still, it means by the time they drill master has dismissed them, the sun is just barely a sliver on the horizon, and their time to wash before dinner and bed is little enough that most don’t stay longer than necessary.

Annie is different. The closest she gets to relaxing is at the end of the day when all her muscles are sore, her mind tired. She doesn’t have the energy to think, but the tepid water feels good against her skin, and that’s more than enough for her. 

Most days, she’s the last to leave. It’s usually dark by the time she dumps the bucket of water over her head and towels off, but the showers are familiar, and when there’s nothing but the sound of the night creatures coming to life and the glimmer of stars above her, she doesn’t mind the stumbling walk to the mess hall or the platter of cold food she gets for being late.

Tonight, Annie has the showers almost to herself. Mina and Mikasa are the only ones left with her, but Mina scrubs quickly at her skin, encouraged by the cool air creeping in where the walls are raised for the water to drain from the floorboards. Mikasa is taking her time, but Annie does her best not to notice.

So when Mina dumps her water over her head and begins to towel off, Annie lets her go without a word. “I’ll see you at dinner,” she calls, still pulling on her shirt and making for the door. It swings closed behind her, and then the only sound is her hurrying away from the showers for the promise of food and company. 

Then it’s just her and Mikasa, and Annie has to focus on the water to really feel it. She thinks about turning and looking over her shoulder, but even she knows the idea is an awful one as soon as it occurs to her. 

Mikasa is dangerous. She’s all bared fangs behind a straight face, the kind of angry that sits and seethes and  _waits_ , and Annie knows that she’s her own kind of monster. Annie stopped being human a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still feel fear, and she knows Mikasa should be feared. 

(and yet some parts of her rebel against that, make her angry where she should be afraid. she thinks,  _she doesn’t know anything about monsters_ , and somehow that makes her a little easier to face)

Sometimes Annie thinks about what would happen if Mikasa ever found out about her. Would she go all dark in the face, murder spelled out on her features, or would she shrink, scared. Annie almost looks forward to the day when she finds out, when she can measure herself against Mikasa in more than just bruises and scratches and marks where she set her teeth to skin.

"You healed."

The voice is right in her ear, and Annie startles enough for Mikasa to set a hand to her hip. 

She’s right behind her, and Annie doesn’t remember when she got there, but now she can feel her breath on her neck, and she has to swallow before she can work her voice with that same, steady tone she always uses against Mikasa. 

"You barely left anything," she says, rubbing her washrag along her bicep, eyes firmly planted on the wall before her.

Mikasa doesn’t say anything, just breathes out against Annie’s neck, and for a moment, Annie thinks that will be all this is. But then Mikasa lowers her mouth to the back of Annie’s neck, and the graze of teeth and tongue sends shivers right down Annie’s spine. 

Annie freezes, straightens, and twists her head, but Mikasa just moves her hair away and  _bites_ , and Annie has to stifle a cry in the back of her throat. It comes out choked, and Mikasa sucks and bites until Annie’s knees feel ready to buckle. 

"There," she says just as Annie starts to think she’ll never stop. She presses flush against Annie’s back, skin slick and warm, and sets her teeth to the shell of her ear. "See if that  _heals_.”

"Ackerman," Annie breathes, half a second before she feels her gut twist into anger. 

She breaks away from Mikasa and turns around, reaching for any part of her she can get. It’s dark now, and all Annie can make out is her silhouette, but she snatches her by the arms and digs bruises into her biceps with her fingers. 

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" she demands, but Mikasa is all silence and shadows. Annie wants to throw her, wants to wrap her hands around her throat and squeeze because what does she think this is? If she wants marks to show, Annie will give them to her, purple bruises and scrapes where her teeth tore instead of skimmed. 

She pulls her close, digging her nails into her arms, and leans up to bite at her throat. Mikasa wears a scarf, so she goes high, sucking marks just below her ear, beneath the line of her jaw. She bites and tastes blood, and Mikasa lets out a groan, half pain. Annie scratches lines up to her shoulders, down her back, and when she reaches her hips and scrapes lines toward her thighs, Mikasa jerks and pushes her back into the wall, hovering over her and leaning heavy against the wood. Annie grunts, but presses her fingers to her thighs, dipping her head to sink her teeth into the skin of Mikasa’s breasts. It’s the only part of her that’s soft, and Annie brings up bruises as easily as she slips her fingers into Mikasa. 

Mikasa hangs her head, her forehead against the wood, and muffles cries into Annie’s ear, muscles taut and trembling, but Annie just works her thumb hard against her clit, curling her fingers and taking Mikasa by the hip to pull her close against her. 

When Annie takes a nipple between her teeth and sucks, Mikasa shudders and nearly buckles, hips jerking, and gives something almost like a whimper that goes straight to the wet warmth between Annie’s thighs. 

She pulls her fingers from Mikasa, wipes them on her thigh, and then pushes her away. She doesn’t say a word, but she knows Mikasa is waiting for something. Instead she picks up her bucket, upends it over her head and towels off. She slips into her hoodie and then yanks open the door, letting it swing closed behind her, and when Mikasa eventually follows her to the mess hall, she spares her only a single glance, somehow better for seeing the dark red bruises blossoming around her neck.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here come the five sentence fic challenges
> 
> "Wintersnow outside, inside a bright and warm fireplace and two girls with hungry eyes on the carpet of bear fur~"

Mikasa wonders if Eren and Armin are waiting for her, Eren dozing in the passenger seat while Armin looks through the defrosted windows at the house and then down to his watch, counting down the time until he’s sure she isn’t coming. She is, she tells herself she is, but Annie’s breath is warm and smells like apple cider, and the rug is soft where she’s knelt upon it. 

She wonders if anyone will see them, wonders is anyone will care, and then decides the beer in her hand is excuse enough if anyone asks. 

Mikasa slides her hand in along Annie’s jaw, tilts her head up, and banishes the thought of having to explain  _this_  to anyone with the feel of Annie’s lips against hers, eager and not even a little fumbling.

"Didn’t think you’d even say hi," Annie says, and Mikasa remembers, again, Eren and Armin out in the car waiting to leave, but Annie has a hold of her scarf and her grip is almost enough to make Mikasa reconsider— _almost_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they totally frack later


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Annie is about to fall asleep until Mikasa silently curls up behind her and starts touching her. They have to be quiet so they don't wake the others."

Annie doesn’t sleep much. There’s something to be said about a guilty conscious, surely, but some nights its hardly her mission that keeps her up when the other trainees are sleeping soundly, resting their aching bodies before the next day’s aches set in.

It’s a whisper, really, the sound of wool against wool, the creak of a bed or floorboard. 

Annie shifts beneath the sheets, sliding her foot along her calf, and when the mattress dips at her back, she only hesitates for half a second before whispering, “Come on.”

Mikasa slides in under the blanket, and Annie turns to meet her, finding the places she can’t see in the dark with her hands and biting down against her voice when Mikasa does the same.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "some blindfolded-with-scarf action? perhaps after the graduation ceremony and the core group selects the Survey Corps. Mikasa notices that Annie is not among them so she tracks her down and, after typical mikaani verbal and physical fisticuffs, fucks the shit out of her"

Annie knows this is it, knows she’s being shipped off to Wall Sina in the morning, knows she’s never going to see any of them again. She thinks, maybe, that’s why Mikasa comes to her, and maybe, why she doesn’t turn her away. 

When she comes to her, back straight and gaze slanted, Annie just reaches up and takes the scarf from around her neck. Mikasa bristles, but Annie slips it over her eyes and ties, and when she pulls her down to her level, collar fisted in her hands, all she says is:

“ _That stays on_.”


	8. Chapter 8

Winter comes on quick. 

It fills the sky with dusky gray clouds and turns the landscape whitewash, snow piled up well past the knees. The trees go bare and then turn dark, nearly black from the cold, and even when the sun shines down, the wind cuts like a knife, sucking all the warmth away from the body in one long moan. 

The sun isn’t shining now. Annie can’t even see the stars through the storm, the snow blinding. It sticks to her face, collects at the edges of her hood, and through her frosted eyelashes, she sees no end to the blizzard. 

"Mikasa," she says, her voice nearly lost to the wind. It screams up here on the mountain, and she has to turn her back to it. Her lips are chapped and blue, and they crack with use. She tastes blood. "We need to stop. We’re losing Sasha."

Her fingers are frozen beyond numbness, brushing outright pain, but she can still feel Mikasa halt in front of her. She looks back over her shoulder, her face pale white, her black hair flecked with snow. Her eyes are pits. She shakes so much, Annie feels it through her heavy woolen coat, her hand nearly frozen around the fabric on the small of her back. 

"I know," she says, and Annie feels Sasha’s grip loosen on her own coat. "There’s no where to go."

Annie looks over her shoulder. Sasha slumps, her breath coming in gasps of misty air. Her nose could be bloody, it’s so red. She says, “I think my toes fell off. I can’t feel them anymore,” and it’s more garble than words. 

"We need to set up camp here," Annie works out between chattering teeth. "She won’t make it down the mountain."

Mikasa shutters when another hard gust of wind howls at their backs, but she sees the way Sasha nearly falls with it and nods her head. Something in Annie gives, and she nearly collapses then and there. 

She can’t though. Mikasa needs her to help set up the tents—tent, really. They won’t have the luxury of space when every second counts and three blankets work better than one. Annie leaves Sasha at a tree, careful to mark its location and then sets to work, pulling out the canvas tent and stakes. Mikasa does the same, and then they both go digging through Sasha’s poorly packed ruck for hers. 

Between the two of them, they work against frozen fingers and trembling grasps until finally a tent is pitched, the snow kicked from the inside so the stakes could reach the ground. They build it up around the canvas to protect it from the wind and then lay the other two canvas tents down as padding between themselves and the ground. 

Annie helps Mikasa pull Sasha up from the tree—her eyes are closed, her knees pulled in, and her breathing shallow—and Annie realizes she’s started sweating. From the frost collecting across Mikasa’s skin, she figures she has too. 

"Be careful," Mikasa says to Annie when they nearly carry Sasha to the tent, their rucks piled up on one side to keep the wind and snow out. 

Annie doesn’t need to be told. She lowers Sasha to the ground slowly, her arm slung over her shoulders, and takes her into the tent on her knees, being as careful as she can not to topple the whole thing. 

Even here, the wind bites into her when it blows, and when Mikasa brings up the rear with their blankets, she almost smiles. Her cracked lips hurt her too much, however, and she just says, “Hurry up.”

Mikasa falls on the other side of Sasha and throws the blankets over the three of them, her arms stiff when she tries to pull it down over their feet and up over their heads. It’s harder for them—they’re too tall almost—but Annie fits just fine, her face pressed into Sasha’s snow spattered coat, her arms pulled into her chest. Her fingers are painful now, but there’s no helping it. 

When Mikasa finally fits them all beneath the thick blankets, she turns in on Sasha, who is quiet save for the chattering of her teeth and the occasional noise of pain, and looks over her at Annie. 

"I’m going to put my arm around her," she says.

"It’s fine," Annie says like Mikasa was asking permission. "Just don’t go to sleep."

Mikasa slips her arm around Sasha, her gloved hand settling just over the curve of Annie’s side, and there’s something surprising in the way she’s so gentle. She doesn’t want Sasha to thrash or get up, Annie gets that, but Annie has only ever felt Mikasa’s punches, touched her when she’s got her in an arm bar. She’d almost forgotten Mikasa isn’t all hard angles, edges to cut herself on instead of steady hands, smooth motions. There isn’t any force to her. She’s human too, Annie remembers. 

Sasha stiffens between the two of them and then redoubles her shivering, and Annie doesn’t give Mikasa warning before she slowly slides her arm over Sasha as well. Her hand fits neatly over Mikasa’s shoulder, the same one she’s dislocated twice now. 

"Don’t go to sleep," Annie repeats, squeezing her shoulder with all the force her frozen hand can muster. She remembers: she isn’t all edges either. She tries again, softer, and Mikasa doesn’t tense up. 

"Yeah," Mikasa agrees, her hand heavy over Annie’s side. "I got it."

They spend the night like that, Annie with her face nestled into Sasha’s coat, her hand easy on Mikasa’s shoulder. Sasha stays still between them, but even when the morning light filters through the snow collected on the tent’s canvas, no one moves. Annie is awake and so is Mikasa—they squeeze and press each other when sleep encroaches—but they know the morning sun is worth nothing and are content to wait in their tangle of bodies until the afternoon is upon them. 

They are only human after all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Mikannie Matching Soulmate Markings CANONVERSE

Mikasa itches. 

Her skin crawls, eyes slits beneath the shadow of her hood, and she thirsts for blood, teeth snapping together. She makes herself take the steps slowly, waiting for Annie to follow, her fingers clasped around the hilt of her sword beneath the raincoat. 

_Just_   _follow,_ she thinks, not looking back. 

"I’m not coming," Annie says, her voice very small. She lingers at the mouth of the passage, the sun at her back covering her face with shadows. "If you’re going down there, this is where I stop."

"Annie!" Eren shouts. "Get down here!"

Armin, beside her, stiffens, fingering the flare gun beneath his coat. Sweat collects on his brow, and he won’t look away from Annie, who won’t meet his gaze. She clasps her hands together, nails digging into the silken bandages wrapped around her hand. 

Mikasa tenses, taking two steps toward her in a single stride, but she hesitates when Annie turns her stone eyes on her. She pulls the bandages from her hand and bares her teeth in a grimace of a smile. 

"Armin!" Mikasa screams, lunging forward, the crack of the flare gun exploding behind her. 

Annie doesn’t hurry, and she doesn’t look away. She brings her finger to her lips, watching Mikasa the whole time, and Mikasa levels a strike to take her head, steel glinting in the evening sun, two steps away. On the back of Annie’s hand, red and black curl into one another, jagged spikes pointed toward her wrist. 

Mikasa misses a beat, her eyes going wide, the identical mark on her own hand throbbing, but she grounds her teeth, digs in, and slashes—

_Annie_ , she thinks, covering the back of her hand and looking down on the tangle of limbs, the head of blonde hair in a pool of blood. She looks down on humanity’s greatest enemy, on her one, her only, and turns away. Her mark sizzles against her skin and disappears in a wisp of smoke. 


End file.
